The Pemaköd Project has been a long one, but anything that begins with pure Bodhicitta intention always produces good results. So it is with this project. Today, I am happy to report that completion of the main focus of the Project is only a few months away. Such accomplishment is due to everyone's efforts and contributions - from those, like you, who help support the project financially from afar, to the sweet little kids who, with their devoted volunteer mothers, carry a few pounds of gravel from the river banks far below the retreat land all the way up steep mountains to the temple construction site.

As I write this, construction of the temple continues, with work underway by five Yolmo molding experts from Nepal, three woodworking and carpentry experts from Bhutan, some 30 Indian laborers, and many devoted volunteers, male and female, from surrounding villages, as well as expert monks and monks who are simply offering their physical labor to help in the effort. All are working hard every day to bring Deden Tashi Choeling Temple - modeled on Guru Rinpoche's Copper Colored Mountain - into full fruition in the heart of Guru Rinpoche's sacred Hidden Land.

It is deeply significant that a three-story Zangdok Palri style temple is being built in this precise location of Padmasambhava's Hidden Land to help protect and preserve a sacred heritage. But in addition, Padmasambhava's prophecies state that virtuous deeds undertaken in Pemaköd profoundly affect and benefit all of humanity and the world, especially in these degenerate times. In accordance with Guru Rinpoche's prophecies, this project was originally begun by my previous incarnation, Togden Kunzang Longdrol, with many great masters who were his contemporaries, living at the very site where this temple is now being built.

With honor and joy in my heart, and buoyed by the aspirations of past great masters, I restarted this project in order to fulfill Guru Rinpoche's prophecies for today's world. For the past several years, I have had the great privilege of offering you and others like you the opportunity to forge various connections with the sacred Hidden Land through your involvement with the Pemaköd Project. You have supported the project with your donations, prayers, and good wishes up to today.

I would like, once again, to extend my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you.

By fulfilling this project in accordance with Guru Rinpoche's prophecies, I firmly believe that we are collectively making an excellent contribution to world peace and for the benefit of all humanity and, indeed, all sentient beings. Whatever role I have played in helping to forge through this project such a precious connection, I dedicate the merit to all mother sentient beings so they have the tremendous good fortune to never be separated from the blessings of our precious Lotus Born Guru, Padmasambhava.

Comprehensive retreat programs from one to three weeks, six months, and three years will be established. Each of these programs will be a complete stand-alone program. The programs will be designed for those who are not fully under the domination of the eight worldly concerns. Participants will already have some degree of altruism and a wholehearted, pure interest in pursuing the path of liberation. It is one of my highest hopes that my friends who visit this land, particularly those interested in participating in any of the retreat programs, will have some of these qualities from the onset. Once our retreat practice starts, much emphasis will be placed on all participants becoming pure Dharma practitioners for the rest of their lives.

Within the different programs as I envision them, practitioners will be offered a specific curriculum of study and practice tailored specifically to the program they are undertaking, so as to be most effective for them. In order to meet our fundamental spiritual needs and affect true inner transformation, it is essential that we be able to apply and integrate the essence of Buddhadharma into our innermost being through its practice in our lives. In other words, philosophical theory alone, however interesting, is not sufficient to affect transformation.

In summary, many masters of the past have attained enlightenment, varying degrees of realization, and at least some level of transformation in their experience of everyday phenomena. May all practitioners, by sincerely following in their footsteps, find fruition in their pure practice of the Buddhadharma.